If you needed a reminder of why you ’re wary of location - based services , here ’s one : A ( gratefully good - intentioned ) hacker was able-bodied to snag information from some 870,000 Foursquare check - ins — even single set up only to be seeable to friends .
Jesper Andersen build a website to exploit a hollow in the “ Who ’s Been Here ” section of Foursquare ’s website , allow him to scrape an judge 70 % of all check - in data in the San Francisco field over the last three workweek . That ’s a lot of ignominious trips to Subway . Wired explain :
On pageboy like the one for San Francisco ’s Ferry Building , Foursquare prove a random grid of 50 pictures of users who most - recently checked in at that localisation – no matter what their privacy background . When a new check - in occurs , the site includes that mortal ’s photo somewhere in the power grid . So Andersen built a custom scraper that loaded the Foursquare web page for each fix in San Francisco , looked for the differences and log the changes .
Andersen , who say he ’s been “ trying to be lily-white - hat ” about his find , allow Foursquare have sex about the breach , and the site respond by bring a context to opt out of the relevant section . Still , Andersen worry that drug user wo n’t know to attempt it out in the first place : “ I certainly have n’t come across a drop - off in check - in collection , ” he said . And that mean he ’s still doing the collecting . [ Wired ]
ExploitsHackingPrivacySecurity
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